Let's begin reading in verse
12 of Philippians chapter 1. Verse 12. Just break sort of
right in here after the Apostle Paul greeted them, spoke some
words of encouragement to them. And here in verse 12, But I would
that you should understand, brethren, that the things which happened
unto me have fallen out, turned out, rather into the futherance
of the gospel. The things that have happened
to me have only served to spread the gospel. So that my bonds
in Christ are manifest in all the palace and in all other places. And many of the brethren in the
Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to
speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ even
of envy and strife, some also of goodwill. The one preached
Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to
my bonds. But the other preached Christ
of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel. Notwithstanding every way, whether
in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached. And I therein do
rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. For I know that this shall turn
to my salvation through your prayer and the supply of the
Spirit of Jesus Christ. According to my earnest expectation
and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, But that
with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified
in my body, whether it be by life or by death. For to me to
live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh,
this is the fruit of my labor, yet what I shall choose I know
not. For I am in a straight betwixt
two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which
is far better. Nevertheless, to abide in the
flesh is more needful for you. And having this confidence, I
know that I shall abide and continue with you for your furtherance
and joy of faith, that your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus
Christ for me by my coming unto you again. We'll look maybe down
through verse 20 this morning, and this afternoon we'll pick
up in verse 21. I was reading Brother Mahan's
comments on some of these verses, and I noticed in one of his lessons
he had it titled, Encouragement During Trials. And as I read
these verses and thought upon them, I realized why he titled
the lesson that, Encouragement in Trials. And I think, even
though I don't have a head in or list the different encouragement,
but I think as we go through this this morning, we can see
where the Apostle Paul himself was greatly encouraged by the
trials that he went through. Now here in verse 12, what does
he mean when he says, The things which happened to me have fallen
out rather unto the featherings of the gospel. The things which
happened to me in some mysterious way have further spread the gospel. Now, what's he talking about?
Well, this is a prison epistle. He wrote this epistle from Rome
and it was a number of years before this that the Apostle
Paul was at Jerusalem in the temple and the Jews found out
about it and they laid hold upon him and was ready to beat him
to death. And the centurion sent soldiers down in among them and
delivered him from the hands of the Jews. They arrested him
and saved him out of that crowd. But from that day he remained
a prisoner. They brought him to Rome, by
the way of a shipwreck, remember the shipwreck? Out in the Mediterranean
for days and didn't see the sun or the stars. Sick, lost all
of the work. Finally lost the ship. And they
landed on the island of Malta. And from there they caught another
ship to Rome. And here he is now living in
his own hard house. They let him rent his own hard
house. But he still has this chain about him. And he's under
a guard. He's under house arrest. He can't
go anywhere, but people can come unto Him. And then he tells them
here, all of this has fallen out to the spread of the gospel. Isn't that encouraging? How Satan
stops and seeks to stop the mouths of preachers and the church sometimes,
and seems like the more he tries to do it, the more the gospel
is spread. The day they arrested Paul there
in Jerusalem, he was somewhat confused about it. He didn't
know what he was going to do, how he was going to get out of
it. And that very night, the Lord Jesus appeared to him some
way or the other, either in a dream or a vision, and said, Paul,
be of good cheer. Don't be afraid. You've preached
of me here at Jerusalem, and you're going to have to preach
of me there at Rome. So this was the Lord's way of
getting this apostle there to Rome to preach the Gospel to
the folks there. Now you remember what the Lord
Jesus said about His sheep. He said, Other sheep I have,
they are not of this fold, they are not of the Jewish fold, them
I must bring. And how does He bring His sheep?
He sends the Gospel to them, doesn't He? He calls them by
the Gospel. So what he's already purposed
to do, and he told Paul, I am going to have you arrested, and
Paul considered himself the prisoner of Christ. You never hear where
he said, I'm the prisoner of Rome. He always says, I'm the
prisoner of Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus arrested him as
it were, put him on this ship, and finally got him to Rome. Why? To preach the gospel to
his elect. even those He hadn't even called
yet. And here's the mystery, brothers
and sisters, behind this. The Lord had some elect people
in the very household of Caesar. Nero had some elect
people. I don't know how close they were
to Him. I don't know if it was some of his very close relatives.
Maybe it was. Maybe his servants. Maybe the
soldiers. But we're told here in verse
13, so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace
and in all of the places. In the palace. And what they
began to see was there in the palace, these soldiers in Nero's
household, This man is not a criminal. He is suffering for the cause
of that One that they call the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth,
who was crucified, whom this man says raised from the dead
and ascended to heaven. And you know something? The Lord
sent His Gospel to the hearts of those in Caesar's household
and saved them. You say, Bruce, how do you know
that? Well, look over here in the fourth chapter of Philippians.
Look in the fourth chapter of Philippians. And look here in verse 21. Here Paul is now, and he's right there,
and he has access to Caesar's household. He knows some of them
now, and they know him. They've listened to him preach.
And look in verse 21. Salute, greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brethren which are with me
greet you. All the saints salute thee. Look at this, especially, chiefly,
they that are of Caesar's household. Isn't that amazing? He says,
some of these brethren greet you. Who are these brethren?
These saints. Paul, who are they? Caesar's
household. Ain't that amazing? Doesn't the
Lord work in mysterious ways to bring His elect to Himself?
You know, He's going to get them. How else? Who else? would have got inside Caesar's
household to preach the gospel to his people, to these people. Not just anybody is going to
get in there. But here was this prisoner of
Christ that he bound him all the way over there in Jerusalem
Tucked him two or three years to finally get him there, but
when he got him there, he set him down in Caesar's household
of all places. It's sort of like when Pharaoh's
daughter found Moses, little baby Moses, and tucked him into
Pharaoh's household. Rocked him on his knee. Can you
see old Pharaoh sitting there rocking little Moses on his knee?
Oh, you're such a sweet child. I just love having you around.
I'm glad my daughter found you. And little Moses, if you had
any understanding, he looked up at him and said, I'm going
to overthrow your kingdom. I'm going to drown you. Oh, the
mysterious ways of God. I tell you, he's got his people,
hasn't he? He's got his elect people. And boy, the ways that's
available to Him to call on. Dear soul, don't worry so much
about your suffering. It may be the Lord right in the
midst of your sufferings will reach one of His children. I
know a fellow down in Kentucky, Tom Wooten, and he got sick,
I mean deathly sick, and they put him in the hospital. He was
laying there in the hospital bed, thought he was dying. Somebody
turned on the TV and Todd Nabbit was preaching the gospel to him.
And he's been in Todd's Road Church ever since. The Lord saved
him. Ain't that amazing? That's so
comforting, so encouraging to Paul after him being put in this
chain and all the shipwreck and all that he suffered. And now
here he finally gets there and lo and behold, Caesar's household
is waiting. to hear the Gospel. It's fallen
out further, he said, to the spread of the Gospel. All my
heartaches and my troubles and my travels, my being made a prisoner,
it's just fallen out to the spread of the Gospel. But it didn't
stop there. Something else happened. And
here in verse 14, in Philippians chapter
1 in verse 14, Not only did it spread the Gospel
to the Lord calling out of His elect people, but look what it
did for some of them. The Lord had saved them and now
He called them to preach and maybe some of the other preachers
were already there, but look what it did. Look what Paul's
sufferings did for these men. Many of the brethren in the Lord,
waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the
Word without fear. These preachers didn't seem to
understand about suffering for Christ, suffering for the Gospel.
They didn't understand that they should have suffered when they
preached the Gospel because so many people didn't like it. But
when Paul got there and they began to hear his story about
his suffering for Christ's sake, then they say, oh, that's the
way it's supposed to be. We thought we were doing something
wrong. We didn't know the world was supposed to hate us, but
now when we see the world has hated you, your own countrymen
are turned on you, they put you in bonds, and we see the strength
the Lord has given you to suffer for His glory, now we're going
to start preaching just a little bit bolder ourselves. We're going
to have a little bit more confidence that when people oppose us, we'll
say, well, the world's supposed to hate us. So the Gospel spread that way.
It spread that way. It encouraged others. You remember
when little David went down to take his brother some bread and
wine and raisins there on the battlefield and all Israel were
scared to death. Goliath was standing over on
the hill and man, he had his big old sword out and had all
of his armor on and man, he was a huge guy, probably 10 or 11
foot tall. Send somebody out here to fight
with me, he said. And the Israelites were scared
to death. And little David said, I'll go
fight him. I'm not afraid of him. Went down
through the little stream, picked him up five rocks, put them in
his little pouch, took his sling in his hand, got up pretty close
to that giant Goliath and put a little rock, a little pebble
there in his sling and hit him right between the eyes with it.
Jumped on him and cut his head off with his own sword. And then
what happened? Well, Ezra said, My goodness,
if God is going to be with a little kid like that, well, we are going
to be courageous ourselves. And I am telling you, every man
pulled his sword out. Some began to blow trumpets,
and they went down through that valley, and the Philistines got
scared and ran off, and they whipped them. I tell you, sometimes
just taking a stand ourselves by the grace of God, It encourages
other people, doesn't it? It encourages other people. I
wish we had one or two today who would take a stand against
some of the things that's going on. Don't you? And I think if
they did, they'd find a whole host of people taking courage
and standing with them. But it seems like everybody just
wants to back down. Poor Paul didn't do it. He didn't. No, he said, I'm going to preach
Christ. You put me in jail, I'm going to preach Him there. And
every time they put him in jail, it seemed like the Lord called
some of his elect. That's where he preached onesimus
to slavery. Remember that? In jail. The Philippian
jailer was in jail. No matter where Paul was, he
said, you're not going to shut my mouth. I've got a Savior to
tell poor souls about. And I ain't going to stop telling
them. You can whip me. You can run my name down. Falsely
accuse me. But I'm going to stand. I'm going
to preach Christ. to poor sinners. And boy, when
others saw that, they become bold too, become very bold. Now here in verse 15 through
verse 18, Paul tells us of these men. They preached Christ. All of them preached Christ.
They weren't preaching the false gospel. They knew the gospel.
They preached the gospel. They preached the Lord Jesus.
But Paul here begins to tell us about their motives. Now this
is very interesting. You hear this Scripture discussed
a lot. But here in verses 15 and verse
16, he tells us about some of these men that preached, he says,
out of envy. Verse 15, some indeed preached
Christ even of jealousy. They were jealous of Paul. Isn't it awful for a preacher
of the gospel to be jealous of another preacher? That's awful. But they were jealous of Paul's
influence. Man, can you imagine him coming
from Jerusalem as a prisoner and now here he is preaching
to Caesar's court? And they got jealous of that.
They got jealous of all the influence. They got even jealous of how
clear he was in the gospel. And they got jealous of his gifts.
Nobody could preach Christ like Paul. And what does jealousy
do? It leads to strife, doesn't it? One preached Christ of envy and
strife. They tried to strip him of his
influence and they did that by stirring up strife among the
brethren and even with him. Jealousy. You know what the Bible
says about jealousy. We see this sometimes among spouses,
boyfriends and girlfriends. Love is as strong as death, but
jealousy is as cruel as the grave. And boy, there's no end to what
it won't do if it's jealous of somebody. And that's what these
men did with Paul. They were jealous of him, so
they stirred up strife against him. to make his life even more
miserable in his bonds. But here we are told in verse
15 and verse 17, the other preached Christ out of goodwill and love. He preached out of goodwill.
There was no malice in this other man's heart. Boy, when he preached,
it was goodwill. He just wished and he hoped and
he prayed that everybody he preached to would hear the gospel and
believe it. He had nothing against nobody.
He loved the Apostle Paul. He loved these other men. And
he said, Brother, I've got nothing but goodwill towards you all. That's what those angels said
when they came down there in Luke 2, wasn't it, from heaven?
Peace on earth and goodwill towards men. And I get up here this morning,
I ain't got malice against nobody here, nobody else. I'm just here
to try to preach the Gospel and hope that everybody here is helped
by Him. That's the way this man was.
But he said there in verse 17, he also preached it out of love,
but the other of love. Boy, I tell you, I guess a man
could preach the gospel as clear as anybody ever preached it,
and not have an ounce of the love of God in his heart. And
that would be a sad thing, wouldn't it? And I know we can't judge
people's motives always, But it would be awful to get up and
preach the gospel, a gospel of love, and not preach it in love. The whole gospel is talking about
love, isn't it? For God so loved the world, He
gave His only begotten Son. He commended His love towards
us while we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. The gospel
is a proclamation of God's love. That's the very root of the gospel.
That's why we have a gospel. It's the love of the Son of God. He loved me. Gave Himself for
me. Shannon, greater love hath no
man than this, that a man lay down his life. It's the love
of the Holy Spirit. Paul said the love of God is
shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We read of the
Lord Jesus coming to this rotten world, this rebellious, vile
world, and giving His life out of love. Well, what about when
the Holy Spirit comes to a vile heart, a rebellious heart, and
subdues it and puts the graces of His Spirit there? That's the
love of the Spirit, isn't it? How could a man preach the Gospel
that declares the love of a triune God and not preach it in love? And I tell you what, I tell you
what, when you receive this Gospel, when you believe it, you receive
it in love. That's the whole problem with
people that we preach to, isn't it? That's love. Paul said they
receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved. It's
a declaration of love. And I tell you when we need it,
we receive it in love. And we speak it in love. We speak
the truth in love. And that's what this man here
did. He preached the truth in love. Brothers and sisters, all
of us ought to labor to preach the gospel as clear as we can. I know John, he tells me sometimes
about getting somebody cornered up and preach this gospel to
them. That's what we should do, isn't
it? And we should labor to preach it as clear as we can. But you
know, there's something else involved too, isn't it? And that's
our motives. That's our motives. Why do we
preach it? Why do we proclaim it? Well,
it should be out of goodwill. It should be for God's glory
and it should be for the health of those who hear us. Now here's
the question that's often been asked. Why did Paul rejoice then? For we see here in verse 18,
what then? not withstand in every way, whether
in pretense, whether they are preaching Christ in pretense,
or whether they preach Him in truth, Christ is preached, and
I therein do rejoice, and yea, will rejoice. Paul was not pleased
with some of their motives. But you know what made his heart
rejoice? They preached Christ. I was reading Brother Mahan on
this and this is what he said made Paul rejoice. He said this,
Christ is preached in the glory of His person. He is preached
in the fullness of His grace, in the excellency of His righteousness,
in the efficacy of His sacrifice, and in the power of His resurrection
and intercession. And he said, when Christ is preached
like this, we all rejoice. I don't know what men's motives
are for preaching, but I tell you, I'll rejoice if they preach
Christ this way. I used to know a fellow. I couldn't fellowship with him
outside the pulpit at all. Bless his heart, he was rough.
He's dead and gone now. I tried to talk to him one day
about a subject, and he got all upset with me, and I said, alright
then, alright then, we'll let it go, brother, I'm not fussing
with you. He was much older than I was. But boy, I tell you what,
when that old man got in the pulpit, oh my, could he preach
Christ. Could he preach Christ. And I
rejoiced. I don't know what his motives
were. He's hard to get along with outside the pulpit. But
I tell you what, I rejoiced because he preached Christ. You can rejoice
if a man preaches Christ, can't you? I tell you what, I wish
sometimes I'd turn my TV on and the Pope would get out of his
little Popemobile and they'd give him a microphone and he'd
take his text out of 1 Corinthians 2, 1 and 2, I profess to know
nothing among you but Christ and Him crucified. I tell you,
I'd rejoice if he did that. His motive would probably be
just to get somebody to come kiss his ring or give him some
money, but I don't care. Paul said, what does it matter?
What of it? As long as they are preaching
Christ. Therefore, he said, I rejoice. Verse 19. Look in verse 19. For I know that this shall turn
to my salvation through your prayers in the supply of the
Spirit of Jesus Christ. I know this shall turn to my
salvation. What kind of salvation was he talking about? I know
this. What's going on here will turn
to my salvation. Some said he could have been
talking about his deliverance from prison. Since so many was
preaching the gospel now, and since so many of Caesar's household
was being saved, people are going to start saying, well, you shouldn't
keep this man in prison. There's nothing wrong with what
he's preaching. Other people are preaching it. Let him out.
Some people say he says that. Maybe so. He says that in verse
25. in verse 26 that He was going to come to them again, He was
confident of that. But I think He means more than
that. If He means that, He means more. And I think He could mean
this, that whatever happens with Him
is going to work for His salvation in the end because all things
do, whether it be by His suffering By his living or by his dying,
everything is working for the good of this man's soul and the
salvation of his soul. All things work for good. So
he could have been saying that. If I stay in this prison, in
this chain, it's working for my good, for my salvation. I'll
be delivered someday. If they let me out of prison,
I go preaching Christ and serving Him upon this earth. It's for
my good. It's for my salvation in the
long run. And brothers and sisters, I could
say this to all of us this morning. If our hearts are rejoicing in Jesus Christ,
if it's our heart's desire, no matter what happens to me, That
Jesus Christ be exalted. That He get all the glory. It
doesn't matter what happens to me. It's going to be well for
me anyway. Whether in short term or long
term. And nothing else matters, doesn't
it? Spurgeon said, let the name of Spurgeon rot. That's what
he said. Well, it's not rotted, has it?
But he said, let the name of Christ be glory. That's what
John the Baptist. Look over in old Philippians
for a minute and look in John's Gospel, chapter 3. This is the very attitude that
John the Baptist had. Look what he said in verse 25.
These fellows have been trying to add afflictions to Paul's
imprisonment. And he said, that don't bother
me. It don't bother me. I'm rejoicing
in Christ. And when He's preached, I rejoice.
As long as He's exalted, it doesn't matter. If I'm put down, I'm
going to rejoice. So He defeated their purpose,
didn't He? They was trying to put a burden
upon Him, but they didn't. You take a man that rejoices
in Christ, and as long as Christ is exalted, that's all that matters
to him. I'm telling you, it's going to
be well with that man. It's going to be well with him. Look here
what John, they said to John. In verse 25, John the Baptist,
there arose a question between some of John's disciples and
the Jews about purifying. And they came to John, maybe
some of them trying to make John feel bad or make him jealous.
They came to John and said, Rabbi, he that was with you beyond Jordan,
Christ Jesus, To whom thou barest witness, behold, the same baptizeth."
He's baptizing Him and His disciples. And look at this, all men come
to Him. John, they're leaving you. You
don't have the crowds that you used to have. They're going to
Him now. Did jealousy rise up in his heart?
Look what he said in verse 27. John answered and said, A man
can receive nothing except it be given to him from heaven.
Yet yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ,
but I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the
bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom, and that's who
I am, he said, standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because
of the bridegroom's voice. This my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must
decrease. And because of that, my heart's
filled with joy, because nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. That's what gave Paul some encouragement
and some joy, even while he was suffering confinement in prison. Look back over at our text again,
Philippians 1, and look at the second part of verse 19. This
is so important. First of all, he said, this is
going to turn to my salvation. I am rejoicing in Christ. He
is getting all the glory. And I know all of this is going
to work out for my good. But look what else he says here
in verse 19. I know that this shall turn to
my salvation through your prayers. Through your prayers. Boy, here
was the greatest apostle among all the apostles. And he's talking
about prayer. He's talking about designing
their prayer on his behalf. Why would a man of his stature
and position request prayer for himself? Because he knew the
value. He knew God was a God who heard
and answered prayer. He knew God was a God of purpose
and He often, so often brought that purpose to pass through
the means of the prayers of His people. He requested prayer for
Himself. This man that wrote all of these
inspired epistles did all of these miracles. He said, Brethren,
pray for me that utterance may be given to me that I may preach
this mystery of the Gospel. May make it known. If you want
your preacher to be a blessing to you, we want our teachers
to be a blessing to us, you know what we should do? We should
seek the Lord on their behalf. Ask Him to bless our preachers
and bless His teachers to us. It's an amazing thing, but the
Scripture says this, that the Son of God was a praying man
Himself. And we're told some of the prayers that He prayed,
aren't we? One prayer is this in Psalm chapter 2. The Father
said to the Son, Ask of Me, and I'll give you the heathen for
Thine inheritance. You mean He wasn't going to give
them anyway? Yes! But He said, Ask Me. He's got
so many things in store for His people, and His desire is that
we come to Him and ask Him for it. He said, If you, being a
good father, know how to give good gifts to your children,
How much more will your heavenly Father give good things to you
than ask Him? You know why we don't have more
than what we have, brothers and sisters? We don't ask. We just don't go to Him and honestly
and sincerely ask. I'm sorry, but that's just the
way it is. I have talked to believers. I
have talked to good Christians. And they've been telling me that
they're facing this difficulty in their life. And I said, well,
have you prayed about it? No, I haven't prayed about it.
My goodness, you haven't prayed about it? Me and Clarence went
and visited a woman the other day. She said she was needing
the Lord, needing to be saved. And Clarence said, have you been
praying to the Lord? She said, no. Then don't expect
anything from Him. Don't expect anything from Him.
If you need Him, if you need His blessings, If you want Him
to do for you for His glory, then go right to Him and ask
Him. I love that passage in Acts chapter
12 where they took James and cut his head off. They've been
cutting people's heads off along this world. And they're still
doing it today. Going back to it now. But they
cut James' head off and put Peter in prison. And I love this passage
in Acts chapter 12. The church came together. And
it said prayer was made continually to God for Peter. And we forget to pray about it? Paul said, I'm going to be delivered.
I've got hope of being delivered. These things are working together
for my good through your prayers. Man, then pray. What do you want to see the Lord
do? Ask Him. Ask Him. One man told me one time, the
least we can do is pray. The least. The least. If you got to visit some king,
would you go up to him and say, well, it's the least I can do
is make a request of you. Man, what's he going to say?
The least? You know who I am, man? I'm the
king. And you tell me the least you
can do is make a request of me. That's the most we can do. Pray
for me. And he says this in the last
part of verse 19. And the supply of the Spirit.
This is going to turn to my salvation through your prayers and the
supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Well, he was wise to
put this in here because who's going to do anything apart from
the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ? We ain't going to do
a thing, are we? I'm telling you, brothers and
sisters, we've learned this by experience. Let this religious
world brag about the power of their free will. We don't have any. We're as weak
as an infant and unstable as water. We can do nothing without
the Spirit of Christ. We can't believe. We can't repent. We can't pray. We can't read
and make any sense out of it. Without Me, you can do nothing.
But oh, when the Spirit comes on the scene! See, He's always
in us, isn't He? He comes in us and seals us,
and He's promised never to leave us until the day of redemption
He'll be in us doing His work. But we want Him to be like the
Lord Jesus said, a well of water springing up. That's what we
want, ain't it? Springing up. I've got a habit. I've made it a habit, and I've
been trying to do this for years. Before I read the Bible, I whisper
prayer under my breath. Lord, give me the Spirit. Open
my eyes so I can understand. Before I pray, I've learned by
experience that when I begin to pray in private, one of the
first things I do is say, Lord, give me the Holy Spirit to hold
me up in prayer. Because if I don't, I'll just
be straying and can't make any sense out of my prayer, and I
have to repent of my praying. It's so awful. But boy, when
the Spirit comes, you read one or two verses and it goes home
to your heart. You see it what you've never
seen it before. When you pray, He holds you up in prayer and
you can worship Him in your prayers. And I never go a Saturday anymore
without asking Him to prepare my heart for Sunday. And I hope
you're the same way. We need the blessed Holy Spirit. We're going to accomplish nothing
with that. I can come up here and have the best outline in
the world. I can preach Christ just as clearly as anybody. But
if the Spirit of God don't use the message on the heart, it
will be nothing. He'll profit nothing. I have
seen preachers that weren't very good preachers at all. They just
weren't good preachers. I wouldn't listen to them. I
wouldn't want to sit under them. But you know something? The Lord
blessed their ministry. The Holy Spirit took what little
they had to say to the hearts of those who heard them and blessed
them. I was reading one time where
Arthur Pink, a man who lived back in the 30's and 40's, he
was having a tent revival one time. And he said, I didn't really
have anything to say for the lost. He said, the message that
was on my heart was giving to the faint. And he said, I tried
to preach a little short message, what I could, on the giving of
thanks. And it was a tent revival, he said. Well, you should have
messages for the lost people. And he said, I left there feeling
awful, and some man came up to me, and he said, oh brother,
and he said, I'm terribly convicted. I am terribly convicted. Pray
for me, the Lord will save me. He said, what in the world has
convicted you? He said, oh, the Lord has showed me what an ungodly,
unthankful man I am. He can take little things, can
He? When He is present, little is much if God is in it. And
you can be up here just rattling around and trying to collect
your thoughts and get them together. But boy, if the Holy Spirit takes
it to the heart. That's it. That's it. Through a supply of the Spirit
of Jesus Christ the Lord. One more thing and we'll close.
Verse 20. According to my earnest expectation
and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that
with all boldness as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified
in my body, whether it be by my life or by my death." Boy,
he said a lot there, didn't he? But what he's simply saying is
this, I've just yielded myself. I've yielded myself, my heart
and my body, for the glory of Jesus Christ.
If I live and they keep me in these chains, I'll live for His
glory. If I die, I'll die for His glory. And he says here, I'll not be
ashamed. I'll not be ashamed. Brothers
and sisters, let us think about these two things, about our souls
and our body. We give a lot of concern, and
we should, to our souls. But you know what? Our bodies
have been purchased. Our bodies belong to Jesus Christ.
Let's think about that. This is the temple of the Lord.
Let us submit our bodies. Offer your body a living sacrifice,
the Bible says. wholly acceptable unto the Lord. Yield your body unto Him. And we don't have to be ashamed.
Paul said, Lord, I'm not ashamed of You. I'm not ashamed of Your
Gospel. I'm not ashamed of Your people.
I'm not ashamed of Your ways. I'm not ashamed. Ain't that wonderful
to live like that? I'm not ashamed of my Lord. We've got nothing to be ashamed
of, If we suffer for Christ's sake, don't be ashamed. That's
His glory. That's His glory. May the Lord
bless His Word.